The Walking Wounded
by Gitana
Summary: Sam misses Ruby. Post 4.22 "lucifer rising"


**The Walking Wounded**

**Timeline: **Post 4.22 "lucifer rising"  
**Word Count/Rating/Genre: **1,669/PG13/Trauma  
**Disclaimer:** NOT mine. Belongs to Eric Kripke.  
**Spoilers: **S1 through S4 finale.  
**Characters/Pairing: **Sam, Dean, Castiel & Ruby - Sam/Ruby  
**Summary: **Sam misses Ruby.

*title from..."The Walking Wounded" by Bayside. The title is a reference to the song which is pretty close to where I think Sam's head space might be.

* * *

Letting Ruby go is easier when he's angry; the rest of the time he waits for her in vain.

Sam can't pretend he doesn't miss her.

At night he moves around looking for her—the thin arms and dark eyes that guarded his sleep. His bed is empty except for him, her warmth not there like it used to be, even after she slipped out to wherever it was she went off to without him. _She fooled you. But she also kept you safe, warm. I miss it. All hell came raining down by the buckets, and Ruby tossed her fire all over you. I miss her._ Sam feels her hands on his face sometimes, the trail of her sweat across his lap. He closes his eyes to forget, or perhaps to concentrate even more.

He hates her and he misses her.

In his sleep her name rolls off his tongue with ease, sweet rum that makes him drunk and stupid. Dean pretends he doesn't hear when her name escapes Sam's broken lips.

Ruby made him believe again, like he believed in angels all his life when he waited and waited and waited. He prayed and he prayed and he prayed; but no one answered. Still Sam figured they were around, invisible to him: Fire where eyes would be, light where blood would run, perfect and terrible. Wings that grew wildly from the core of their bones, translucent skin fine as silk yet unbreakable, fifty-feet tall guardians between heaven and hell. Sentinels of the innocent, beings of righteous thunder sent down by heaven itself.

The angels arrived only to allow the world to burn by his hand as it was foretold. They weren't there to help him or to answer his many prayers. _The boy with the demon blood…_ First angel he ever saw. He should have known better; he was never an innocent. From birth he was delivered to the hands of a demon that waited a long time for him.

Ruby waited a long time for him too; but Sam kept drifting farther away from her, from everything they wanted him to be. Sam is a hurricane of a man—like John and Dean—tamed only by his own conviction. Ruby worked hard to gain his trust the only way Sam Winchester's trust could be gained: through Dean. _I'll help your brother with his deal. I'll help you kill Lillith to avenge him._

Faith: it's what always gets him into trouble. _Dean, I need her._ Those words might still be true, he fears.

He may have loved her sometimes.

Ruby wasn't even a real girl. She was a lie, all of her. He wants to kill her all over again when he remembers what she did. How she stood triumphant as he brought forth the Apocalypse. The veil had been lifted. Sam grabbed her, and held her steady for his brother to kill. He wishes the knife had pierced through her and into him too.

He watched it hit the floor stone cold, empty for the first time. It felt weird. The body he called Ruby, the face and eyes he looked at for comfort and encouragement, the hips he gripped tight as they rocked him back and forth for hours—dead on the floor. This keeps happening…the dying, the losing, the horror.

Sam, Dean, and Castiel are hiding underground as people die in the world somewhere up there.

"We're all being hunted. We have to be ready when the time comes." Dean tries to explain.

"When it's time, you go fight him. You go fight them all, I'm done."

Dean reassures Castiel that his brother will be fine when it's time to re-enter the war.

"He's still in shock. He's going to be okay," Dean tells him.

Castiel watches Sam sleep as he twists and turns, shaky and restless.

"I'm sorry." Castiel knows Sam can't hear him through the nightmares but he says it anyway.

It's been a tiring life for Sam Winchester, always on the run from someone or some thing. He realizes that he should have known better than to trust Ruby, any demon. But Dean… But the world… It's been a disappointing life for Sam Winchester.

He dreams about her, and she's laughing at him, taunting him with her victory, celebrating by pointing at him, gasping for air because she's laughing so hard. It's a cruel cackle that drives him insane, but she won't stop until the whole world shakes. She looks at him straight in the eye, "Mama's boy." He wakes up.

Some other night she cradles him as he lies on the floor. He's broken all over, bleeding from the nose and the mouth from trying to kill her. "I told you, silly. You can't do that anymore," she sweetly reminds him. She locks her arms around him and places her head on his shoulder. He tries to push her away, but he can't move his arms. He's in a trance like he's been drugged.

"Yo—you…poisoned…me!" he says with a heavy tongue. His words are slurred and confusing, even to him.

"I saved you from killing yourself. That night I came back to you; you were going to do it, weren't you? I kept you _safe._ Now we're going to be fine. He's going to take care of us. He's going to be so grateful to us, Sammy. This is perfect."

Sam can't move. Bitter tears in his mouth, the blood warm on his face.

"Don't cry, Sammy. I got you."

Sometimes he's alone in a cheap motel room. He's lying down like he's getting ready to sleep except a loud siren is keeping him awake. He doesn't wonder if it's a police siren or an ambulance. He's tired, so tired. There's a knock on the door. After a few more knocks, Ruby storms inside. It's Ruby like the first time he met her: tall, blonde, tongue like a serpent.

"You _idiot_! What have you done? This is what we wanted, remember? You killed Lillith, Dean is alive, what's wrong with you? Turned all cry-baby on me after all I did for you."

Sam doesn't move. He's staring at the mold on the ceiling, the stripped edges of badly glued wallpaper.

"Are you deaf?" Ruby walks over to him and shakes him. Her hair gets tangled up in her eyelashes from the exertion. She removes the hair from her eyes, tries to relax.

"Okay," she says. "We can talk, I'm calmer now."

He still won't move.

"What do you want me to say, Sam?" Ruby stood next to the bed, looking down at him. "I needed to draw you in and I used Dean. So what? You would've done the same. Get over it."

He turned to look at her. From his point of view she was a little blurry and out of focus. She towered over him like a ten-feet-tall evil princess, beautiful and strong. He felt small and vulnerable. Ruby grabbed his face with her hand, and squeezed, "Are you listening to me?"

She squeezed harder. Blood dripped out of his right eye.

"It keeps doing that," Sam said softly. "I think I'm broken. Is it supposed to do that?"

Ruby sighed deeply.

"No. It's not," she said letting him go. "But I can fix you."

"You can?"

"Come with me. Trust me again. It's going to be better, I won't lie anymore, we'll be on the same side and I will be able to take care of you. We can be together now."

"Stay with me here."

"I can't, Sam. We have to keep fighting."

"Why?"

"We're soldiers; it's what we do. We fight and we die."

"I fought and I died and nothing changed."

"Because you were fighting for the wrong side; but if you come with me now things will be right."

"Things will never be right."

He wakes up to find Dean passed out on the bed next to him. It's always night. Sam wonders if he's crazy or if the sun stopped coming out. _Every time I open my eyes it's dark_.

"Castiel?" he calls out. Nobody answers.

Sam gets up from his bed and tries to get Dean to wake up. As soon as Sam touches Dean's shoulder he turns into a skeleton. Sam jumps back spooked. "Oh my God! Dean! Oh my—"

"Why are you so surprised? You're the one that told me things were never going to be right."

"What do you want from me, Ruby?"

"Aw… Are you going to cry again, Sammy?"

"_Please_, leave me alone!"

"You're the one keeping me here."

Sam slumps down on the floor.

"Dean…"

Ruby stands in front of him.

"You need me," she says to him. She takes the space on the floor next to him, and comforts him. "Shhh, Sammy, I'm here." He buries his face on her neck, breathes her in, and pulls her closer to him. Ruby lets him take over her like she has done so many times before; he overwhelms her completely, which he loves.

"I got you, Sammy."

Sam kisses her violently until she bleeds.

"Now you're broken, too," he says.

"You can't break me, Sam." She kisses him, slow and painful because he can't push her away. "But you can try," she whispers as she starts unbuttoning his jeans. "You never tried me in this one."

"Ruby…" Sam grabs the knife from the sheath strapped to her ankle and plunges the blade deep inside her. She gasps, surprised.

He wakes up only to be blinded by a patch of sunlight peeking through the curtains. He turns his face away for a moment.

"Are you okay?" Dean asks.

Sam closes his fist around Dean's wrist. Dean is still there, alive.

"Are _you_ okay?" Sam asks.

"Yeah, why? What happened?"

"Ruby."

Dean squirms like he does every time he hears the name.

"She's dead, Sam. I killed her."

"Me too."

Sam can't pretend he doesn't miss her, but he hopes less and less each day. Someday.

-The End-


End file.
